Chocolate and Roses
by Twilts
Summary: It's Valentine's Day and Remus is feeling lonely... until Tonks comes by to take care of him. RLNT Oneshot.


**Note: **Sorry this sucks… I couldn't bring myself to edit it (too lazy, I suppose). Do tell me of any errors so I can edit them and reupload. Remus has to be my favorite character in the series, and I've practiced characterizing him before, but… it's been a while. With the startling realization that he is a full fourteen years older than Tonks, ages were a little difficult to adjust. Hope this went well?

For Sceltina, the magnificent! The fourth of ten fanfics for our exchange!

_T_heme:Valentine's Day

_D_ue: Feb. 14th 

The lyrics are from Jason Mraz's "Clockwatching," which was on the CD I was listening to when I wrote this.

**Chocolate and Roses**

By _T_wilts

_  
When the matter is too delicate, my loneliness is evident,  
And it's you. You're running through my mind  
And it makes me crazy._

If Remus would describe himself in one word, it would be old. Sure, he was only thirty, an age many would consider the prime of any sane person's life—an age to celebrate, spend long nights throwing back martinis on the rooftops of a diamond-encrusted towers, to come back home to the fantastic sex of a lover, to pledge your life to living it up. You were to drink, breathe, and savor life. Carpe diem!

He was past that age, in his opinion, and he'd had the prime of his life at a sorry thirteen, when going a day without a prank seemed a tragedy and a day with an under-the-weather professor, paradise. In his case, he'd spent his young life swatting away the hands of his insane roommates and trying to get his as close as possible to drowning in books, without actually taking his last breath of air. He'd become more familiar with the slightly dusty smell of books rather than the sweet smell of perfume on a woman's skin in _his_ glory days. He'd been the sane one in his group of four friends. He'd be the one trying to convince them to finish their essays early and to possibly give Snape a break from the humiliating pranks. He'd assumed that he'd had enough of seeing the poor boy's graying undergarments and heard enough about how greasy Snape's hair was. In the end, he assured them, the other three Marauders would regret not buckling down and delving into their studies, because they'd have plenty of time for fun when they became the Aurors and healers and charm inventors that they aspired to become. He reflected now that perhaps he hadn't spent enough time thinking about himself.

While they needed to concentrate, he needed to lose control.

It all went downhill after Hogwarts. His diligence and Prefect status were nothing in comparison to his terrible "condition," because no one could be justified in hiring a lycanthrope. Sure, he _is_ a normal person every other day of the month, but just think… he spends that _one solitary night_, when he makes sure he's not around other people, turning into a _wolf_! Remus was as bitter as the vodka sliding its wicked way down his thirsty throat.

He lived faster than other people—he was "retired" by a lowly age of twenty-five, because there really was no other job out there for him but sitting home and singing sweet songs of lonely desperation to the thriving green garden in his backyard. When his friends were still alive, they'd take his tame wolf out into the garden and Remus could feel his sense of smell flare alive at the thought of the fragrant geraniums and the sweet animal smell of fur and perspiration and the visceral comfort of belonging in that pack of four mismatched animals. His eyes drifted to the window that granted him a square of the lush greenery and he could practically see the soft glint of the oncoming moonlight on the bloodless leaves.

He was stiff in his seat, his posture perfectly stacking vertebrae upon vertebrae in a position he'd read was optimal to a singer, and in which he felt he could battle the bricks of societal expectations he could not match and maybe sing his own melody himself. It was only too bad that his vocal chords resembled those of a cackling hyena.

It was Valentine's Day in 1991, and this year James and Lily would be gone for a good ten years. That was a decade, and that was the same expanse of time his eager eleven year old soul had needed to endure in order to old enough to grace the slightly intimidating oak doors of Hogwarts that he'd seen on the boat ride over. He remembered that when he was eleven, his memory was shaky at best, and all he seemed to remember were hazy summer mornings getting lost in the pages of a book and leaning against a tree four times as thick as his waist was. This coupled with the excruciating pain of his transformation, which was always a feeling he carried about in the back of his mind, never mind how often he'd endured the transformations in his life. He was bitten at five and that would make that… 300 transformations? 300! He choked a bit on his wine, feeling it travel uncomfortably up his nasal passage for a bit, and he spluttered and coughed and squeezed his nose in discomfort.

Standing, he left the comfort of his large brown armchair before the fire and went to the kitchen, pouring the devilish alcohol down the sink with a glare at its innocent, translucent color as it slipped with ease into the tunnel of the plumbing.

The point remained that if he could only remember the insignificant parts of his past at even eleven, who's to say that he wouldn't forget his friends without the existence of the many pictures they'd snapped when they were young? Would he remember the lazy was James looked at his love, Lily, were there not photographs to remind him? Would he remember the way Sirius had endlessly harassed him while he attempted to study if it weren't for the picture that captured Sirius' antics? Would he even remember the profound sense of comfort and support his friends had always given him were it not for the many Pensieves he kept? If his hair lost its color at a young age, who's to say that he won't lose his mind?

Ten years was a long time to cling to the past.

He always endured an odd sort of desperation on this holiday of love. While others who were single like himself would lament the lack of a girlfriend, boyfriend, or someone else to devote their hearts to, he would lament his immense loneliness in general. School life would always bring the thirst for a romantic sort of love out in the girls around the school, but it would also evoke a strong sense of thankfulness that they had any love at all. He always noticed the chocolates that the girls in the school would dotingly give to each other as a symbol of their friendship. He loved chocolate, and he loved his friends.

When they died, Remus would feel their loss on Valentine's Day, because he didn't get love or chocolates of any kind.

He was ripped unceremoniously out of his musings at the loud thump coming from his living room, and his wrist jerked and sent the hot water he was pouring for his cocoa sliding across the table top and onto his bare feet.

CRASH!

"Argh! Merlin!"

"Bloody hell!"

Remus's yellowish eyes shot up at the foreign voice, and widened with visible shock, and he started to bolt towards the fireplace, following an enticing scent of roses…

Only to fall on his face in pain. He gasped as he shot a look to his foot. It was blistering angrily from the scalding hot water it had recently courted, and his sudden movement had caused it to inflame. He'd also very gracefully stepped on a shard of his shattered mug.

"Bugger," Remus mumbled to himself, and using support from the kitchen countertop, he hoisted himself into a standing position. Hobbling to the family room once again and making not to put any pressure on his foot, and peeked nervously around the corner.

He was greeted by violent pink hair that seemed to be sprouting from his carpet.

Inching as quickly as he could around the couch, he saw the seventh year girl, Nymphadora Tonks, sprawled across his carpet, who was now hoisting herself off, a red mark on her forehead and a silly grin on her face.

"Wotcher, Remus," she said, standing up and walking over to the older man. He paused, looking at her in shock, and realizing that the scent of roses he'd smelled was coming from the bright red flower tucked in her hair. He thought that despite how it clashed with her hair, it went brilliantly with her smile.

"Nymphadora, what on earth are you doing here?" Remus asked, his voice weary, and only wincing slightly from his pain. He'd also just realized that he was tracking blood across his living room carpet. The carpet was also a convenient shade of white.

"It's Tonks," she said, wrinkling her nose at him. "Besides, it's Valentine 's Day, you know. Bloody ridiculous holiday, but no handsome man should be spending it alone, you know!"

Remus sighed. Tonks had decided a long time ago that the older Remus was the perfect man for her. Remus had also decided a long time ago that no woman was the perfect man for him. It just made it worse that the pretty seventeen year old was just a little over half his age.

"But what are you doing _here_?" he asked, ignoring her comment. "School is on you know. You're a pretty witch… you should be at school eating chocolates with another seventh year boy."

"Remus, I am where I want to be, don't worry… besides, we're allowed to leave tonight! Dumbledore even opened up Hogsmeade to the older years! Your house is in Hogsmeade, if you've forgotten!"

"You shouldn't—."

"Wait, what's wrong?!" Tonks exclaimed, stepping closer to him. She could tell there was something wrong with her poor man. He was sweating a bit too much for the fire and there was something like pain behind his eyes. She wasn't naive enough to think that he'd finally fallen in love with her, either.

Remus sighed, "Go back to school, Tonks. I'm fine."

"No, you're not!" Tonks said, rushing around the couch that divided them, steadying herself when she tripped over a rug. "What the bloody hell did you do, Remus?!" She gasped and knelt down at his feet to see his blistered foot, which was now resting in a patch of carpet drenched with blood.

"Don't—don't worry, I'm fine!" Remus tried to jerk his foot away, put Tonks held fast and tugged his leg to herself. Remus promptly lost balance and landed with a 'humph' on his butt.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Tonks said, eyes widening at her destruction. "Wait right here, I'll get some medical stuff!" With that, she rushed away, supposedly to the bathroom to shift through his medicine cabinet. Remus would have been worried about her if she hadn't done the same before.

Sirius had introduced the two misfits when Tonks was five, and she and Remus had been companions for a long while during the summers. Oftentimes, James, Sirius, and Peter would rush off to create some form of destruction, while Remus would sit primly at a desk inside, working diligently on his summer homework. Tonks, being too young to cross the street on her own, would pull his hair, steal his books, and poke his head—anything to distract him enough to play with her. She was also the first person to bring a housewarming present when Remus had used inheritance to buy a home, and had made sure to bother him at least once each following summer. Every time she came, she wore a rose in her hair.

Tonks was back in a matter of seconds, it seemed, and had unconsciously changed her hair to a more natural brown color, and her hair spilled in lose curls down to the middle of her back. She pushed her hair irritatedly out of her face when she kneeled in front of Remus again, pulled her foot into her lap.

"I took some household-healer classes on the weekends a few months ago," she informed him. "So I'm not _completely_ useless. At least, when it comes to this."

Remus decided against his usual preferred silence to protest. "You're not useless! You're magnificent, beautiful, and amusing. I trust you."

She blushed a faint pink and used a few tissues she'd snatched to gently wipe his foot. He watched with fascination her dainty, skillful hands as they washed his foot in a refreshing bit of water.

She glanced up quickly, and blushed when she saw him watching her.

"This'll hurt a tad, alright?" Remus nodded, comfortable with the idea that he'd felt worse pain. She winced a bit when she took tweasers to his wound, and felt it nudge the bit of mug that was lodged within his foot, and bit his lip. She slowly extracted it, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration and worry, and Remus thought briefly that she looked beautiful. Her brown curls were framing her face, and her cute little nose and full lips were gorgeous in this moment. His eyes wandered a bit, because he hadn't let them wander for years.

And then he mentally told himself off for eyeing up a teenager. His form stiffened, and then the glass came loose, and he yelped in surprise and pain.

Tonks' eyes shot up, and she looked guiltier than he'd ever seen her. He recognized the face from when McGonagall would tell the Marauders off, and he was a expert in it.

"I'm so sorry!" she gasped for the second time that night, and quickly magiced the cut closed before playing with her fingers in a panicky manner. The blood red rose had slipped from her ear and tangled in her hair, and in her state of distress she looked forlorn. She appeared as though she wanted to launch a hug at him to ease his pain and her anguish.

"It's fine, I'm fine" he reassured her, reaching over to stop her fidgeting hands. His hand squeezed hers tenderly before reaching up and tucking the rose firmly behind her ear. "I've felt worse. And you did a magnificent job! Look, good as new!" He wiggled his toes in reassurance, but then winced in shock.

"No, don't do that!" she cried. "Your blister. Hold on, I just need to apply this!" She showed him a bottle of burn-healing cream she'd found in his cabinet. "Stay still for a moment," she ordered, placing her foot in her lap again, and inching as close to him as possible.

The cream was cold on his skin, and he shivered, but the feeling of her massaging hands unwound his nerves and blew his stress away like a wind blowing the smoke from a raging fire. He laughed a bit, partly because he was embarrassed and ticklish, and partly because he though it a bit pathetic.

"Sorry you have to spend your Valentine's Day like this, Nymphadora. You're massaging and old man's feet and I haven't even any chocolate for you." Remus smiled at her fondly and apologetically.

Tonks looked at him with wide eyes, a smile of satisfaction dancing in her eyes. "Are you kidding? I love taking care of you, Remus."

And then Remus was reminded distinctly of the marital promise of loving in sickness or in health. A blush was added to his smile, and he felt something like an arrow of love pierce his heart.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a lonely holiday after all.


End file.
